He resumed his seat and the Rabbi filled three small tulip glasses with steaming golden liquid. Whenever he used the samovar, imon remembered his mother too. The way she always pushed her sleeves back just before she poured from the teapot. It was the only time she ever exposed the number tattooed on her wrist, 17564. She was dead, but that number still lived, cut into his memory like diamond on glass. It was such a big number.

imon gave his guests their tea and sat down behind his desk.

He sighed. 'So, gentlemen, Leonid Meyer. How can I help?'

'Background mainly, sir,' said ikmen. 'We know very little about the gentleman. Nobody has, as yet, come forward to claim him as their own. Anything you can tell us really.'

The Rabbi took a sip from his glass and then put it down on the desk. 'Well, as you already know, Leonid was Russian. He came here in 1918, just after the Revolution.

Like my own parents he found integrating into the community quite difficult. He never really got to grips with Ladino, never, to my knowledge, married, and tended, inasmuch as he communicated with anyone, to restrict his friendships to within other emigre circles. I speak Russian myself and, as the only Ashkenazi rabbi in the district, it was inevitable that I should attend to Leonid's spiritual needs.'

'Was he a religious man?'

imon smiled. 'No, Inspector. To be truthful I was more Leonid's psychiatrist than his rabbi. He was old, he drank heavily, he just sometimes wanted someone to talk to. It was my linguistic skills he was after, not my faith.'

"I see.'

'Leonid Meyer was not a happy man. For some peculiar reason he wanted to go back to Russia. He never settled here.

I didn't manage to discover whether he still had relatives in the Soviet Union, in fact I never did and still don't know whether he had any here either. However, there appeared to be some sort of unfinished business, but quite honestly, Inspector, he was always so drunk, I often found it hard to understand what he was saying.'

Suleyman took a notebook and pencil out of his pocket and started writing. 'Can you think of anyone who particularly disliked the gentleman, sir?' he asked the Rabbi.

imon thought silently for a few seconds. 'No. Not really. Every so often one or other of his neighbours would complain about him to the landlord. When he was drunk he tended to shout a lot. He would throw things around, curse, sob even.'

ikmen took his cigarettes and lighter out and put them on the Rabbi's desk. 'Do you mind if I smoke, sir?'

'No, not at all.'

'Do you have any idea what all this raving and sobbing was about?' asked Suleyman.

The Rabbi slid a dirty glass ashtray across at ikmen. 'Well, I do and don't.' He paused. 'As far as I can tell it all stemmed from sometime before he ever came to Balat.'

ikmen offered a cigarette to the Rabbi. 'You mean when he was still living in Russia?'

The Rabbi took the cigarette and lit up. "I believe so, yes.

There was some sort of violence involved. Strangely, when one considers that Leonid came from the background that he did, which was both impoverished and Jewish, it was not violence enacted against him, but rather violent acts perpetrated by him.'

'Oh?'

'Some people were killed. Or rather Leonid and others, I don't know who, killed some people. Given the violence inherent in those troubled times I suppose it is all quite feasible. But quite who Leonid's victims were, and why, when and how it all occurred, I really do not know.'

ikmen, his brow furrowed, sighed shallowly. 'I don't suppose he ever said whether or not these events were connected to the wider disturbances in Russia at that time?'

'You mean the Revolution?' The Rabbi smiled. 'No, Inspector, he did not. I suppose they may have been but then, given the fact that Leonid was a poor Jew, they might equally have been connected simply with his routine, for want of a better word, struggle to survive.'

Suleyman looked up from his notebook. 'Are you aware of anyone else who might know about Mr Meyer's past, sir?'

'Only, possibly, Sara Blatsky. She's an elderly Russian lady who had an - albeit sometimes uneasy - friendship with Leonid. It might be worth your while talking to her.

I'm sure she'd be most co-operative.'

'Yes, sir,' ikmen replied, 'we plan to see Mrs Blatsky as well as a Maria Gulcu over in Beyoglu and a company called eker Textiles. All these names and addresses, as well as your own, were found in a notebook belonging to the deceased.'

"I see.'

"I don't suppose you know of either Maria Gulcu or eker Textiles?'

The Rabbi stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and leant back in his chair. 'Maria Gulcu, I don't know.

I don't remember Leonid talking about such a person although that, of course, doesn't mean that he didn't.

eker Textiles, however, I do know about.'

'Oh?'

Suleyman, pen at the ready, prepared to take down any relevant details.

'eker Textiles,' said the Rabbi, 'was the company that employed Leonid from the time he first came to this country until, I believe, sometime in the 1940s.'

"I don't suppose you know what his job was, Rabbi?'

imon frowned in an attempt to remember, but only momentarily. 'He was a cotton packer. You know, baling up fabric, putting it into sacks and boxes. Not the sort of thing I could see Leonid doing from my own experience of him.

His hands were very bad, you know, sort of clawed. Perhaps arthritis. I don't really know - I never asked. But anyway, apparently he liked the job but fell out with the owner of the company over something or other. I expect it was his drinking. Although considering who the owner was, or rather is, it could have been because of something else.'

ikmen eyed the Rabbi quizzically. 'Meaning?'

'eker Textiles is owned by a man called Reinhold Smits.

As you can probably tell from his name he had a German father. One of those who came to this country during the 1914-18 war, I believe. Anyway, legend has it, and I must stress here that this is only anecdotal, that Reinhold Smits was rather vocal with regard to his support for the Nazi regime in the 1940s.'

Ikmen looked across at Suleyman who was writing everything down in minute detail. 'Was he indeed?'

'So it is said.' Rabbi imon reached inside his desk and took out a packet of cigarettes. 'And if that is true it could explain why Leonid was asked to leave at that time. There could be no place for a Jew in a company headed by a person with such views.' He opened up the packet of cigarettes and shook one out towards ikmen. 'Cigarette?'

'Thank you.' Before he lit up, ikmen tapped the little tube of tobacco gently upon the top of the desk. 'You say that eker Textiles is still owned by Smits?'

'As far as I know. Although I really don't think that Leonid had any contact there since he left - he never spoke of it.'

'And yet,' said ikmen, 'he still had the company's address in his book over fifty years later.'

The Rabbi shrugged. "i have no idea why that might be, I'm afraid. His involvement with them finished, as far as I am aware, back in the 1940s.' He smiled a little rather embarrassed and flustered smile. 'What I mean, I suppose, is that I don't think it very likely that Mr Smits had anything to do with Leonid's death. I think that is most unlikely.'

With a flick of the wrist, ikmen threw his cigarette up into his mouth and lit up. 'Yes. I see what you're saying, Rabbi. Mmm.'

A moment of tension followed which Suleyman did not understand but which he felt compelled to curtail.

'So,' he said, 'do you know what Meyer might have done after he left eker Textiles, sir?'

'My understanding,' the Rabbi replied, 'is that Leonid never actually worked again.'

ikmen and Suleyman exchanged a troubled look which Rabbi imon both saw and acknowledged.

'That Leonid had no observable financial problems,' he continued, 'was always a mystery to me. I suppose he could always have had some sort of pension or annuity, but I never heard him speak of such things.'

'He wasn't, as far as you know, Rabbi, behind with his rent?' ikmen asked.

'No. In fact quite the reverse. Mr Dilaver, his landlord, was put in rather a "position" because of it. Leonid was often upset as well as being almost permanently intoxicated and his sometimes ceaseless crying and shouting gave many of his fellow tenants real cause for complaint. He was also in the habit of filling his little apartment with the most awful derelicts including, I have to say, the unfortunate Leah Delmonte. But as long as he was paying the rent on time, Mr Dilaver didn't really have any cause to evict him.' He smiled. 'Besides, around here those who pay their rent at all are few and far between and from the monetary point of view the landlord could not have wished for a better tenant.'

'The crying and shouting being almost always connected to his violent past?'

The Rabbi sighed. 'Yes. It seemed to haunt him and sometimes when he was very drunk, I think he might have fancied himself back there, if you know what I mean.'

'Yes.'

Addressing both policemen, the Rabbi continued, 'Whatever one's stance may be with regard to divine retribution, I really do not believe that anyone can feel ultimately happy about taking the life of another. Had Leonid felt all right about it he would have stayed in Russia, wouldn't he? I mean, just after the Revolution things got better than they had ever been for Jews there - for a little while.'

'Yes.' ikmen glanced quickly at Suleyman and then turned back to the Rabbi once again. 'Is there anything else you can tell us, sir?'

'No, not really. Leonid, with the exception of that one event, didn't tend to talk about himself much. It was all mainly trivia: grumbling about the price of things, his neighbours' noisy children, his aches and pains, things like that. As I've said, he never spoke about his money, so I'm afraid that I can't tell you where he got it from.'

He looked down at his desk and lowered his voice. 'The people are very frightened, you know, Inspector.'

"I can imagine.'

'At the risk of causing offence, I don't think that you can.'

He put his hand up to his face and scratched his beard.

'Most of the people around here have never experienced real anti-Semitism. It is a credit to your people that they haven't, but ...'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Both my parents were in Dachau. How they survived I cannot imagine. But through them and their experiences and the experiences of my own sad little flock of Ashkenazim here, I do have an awareness of what anti-Semitism can be like if it is allowed to run out of control. Most of the poor little Sephardis here are frightened but unaware. I look at what is happening, rearing up in other parts of Europe, and I don't honestly know what to do for the best. Part of the reason why the Germans could do to us what they did was because we were too trusting, we were not prepared.' He looked ikmen straight in the eye.

'To your knowledge, Inspector, is this a growing problem here? Please be frank.'

ikmen lit another cigarette and rolled a second across to the Rabbi. 'Oh.' He paused. 'What can I say? There are, and always have been, elements who discriminate against others for no good reason. I would be doing the Jews of Balat a disservice if I told you not to be vigilant. As you've probably noticed, we've increased the frequency of our patrols in this area. But my honest opinion?' His face became very grave. "I think one person killed Leonid Meyer.

A very deeply disturbed individual with some kind of crazy reason of his own.'

'Well, the swastika-'

'Oh, yes, I grant you that whoever it was doesn't care for Jews, but I don't think that's the whole story. The method used to kill him was very specific, it had to be him and it had to be that way. Personally I think there was a definite motive. This was a personal act against Mr Meyer himself.

I may yet be proved wrong, but-'

'So you're saying you don't think there's any movement or organisation behind this?'

'I can't be absolutely certain, but I don't think so. I will, nevertheless, be talking to this Smits man in the near future. I've received no information to suggest a sudden upsurge in anti-Semitism in this city. Such an eventuality is, however, being taken very seriously at a level much higher than myself. The intelligence-gathering agencies are on full alert. Looking at it from a purely selfish point of view, you must remember that Israel is one of our allies in this region.'

'Of course.'

ikmen stood up. 'Well, we'd better not take up any more of your time, Rabbi.'

SJmon rose to his feet and offered his hand to ikmen.

'No trouble. It's very good of you to take the time to be so reassuring.'

The two men shook hands. Suleyman put his notebook and pen away and joined his boss. 'Goodbye, Rabbi imon.'

'Goodbye, Sergeant.'

He led the two policemen into the hall and unlocked the door for them.

'I'll keep you informed,' said ikmen as he walked through the doorway.

'Thank you.'

Suleyman stepped out into the sunlight, taking his sunglasses out of his pocket as he went. The Rabbi was just about to go back inside when ikmen stopped him.

'Rabbi?' His face was quizzical, but shocked somehow, as if a frightening thought had just crossed his mind.

'Yes?' The Rabbi's voice showed concern. The little Inspector looked suddenly almost ill.

It wasn't an easy question for ikmen to ask but he asked it. 'How do you feel when you look at a swastika?'

The Rabbi's face went pale and he sighed. 'Oh.' He tried to think of a way of describing his feelings that was logical and not too tainted by emotion. He wanted the Inspector to understand him, but nice, passionless words just wouldn't come. 'Haunted, Inspector. And trapped. It's like I'm in a cage with a ghost and I know I can never be free.'

The two men looked at each other and to the Rabbi's surprise he realised that the Inspector had understood him.

How, he couldn't say, but he was glad. He was always glad when someone else, someone Gentile, finally understood.

Every time it happened it meant that number 17564 receded that little bit further into the past.

'What are you planning to cook for our visitor tonight?'

Anya Gulcu looked up from her book. A tall, bearded

76.